BREV TIL: Roman Jakobson FRA: Louis Hjelmslev (1945-09-26)

AIR MAIL

26 September, 1^4.5

Professor Dr, Roman Jakob son, Columbia University, De.Pt. o? Comparative Linguistics, Hew York, H.Y. Dear Roman, Thank you. ever so much, for your very w-ind letter, Uldall *s are staying here with us for the time being, and we are all~of* us so glad to know that you are all right both of you and that you have been pursuing your work, under good conditions, 1 am glad to know about your publications and about your plans. As for me ray chief publications during the war period are a paper in Cahiens Saussure II about ’Langue et parole*, and toy Prolegomena to Glos- sematics (written in Danisn: »omkring sprogteoriens grundlæggelse* in Festskrift from our University November 4i; the book;will be translated into French), I ,„ee& not mention some minor papers of less import1 nee. The war period has not been very favorable fco scientific work: it has been difficult to concentrate, and the lack of international cooperation means a psychological drawback. Uldall and I, wno have not seen eacn otner and not been able to ex- change letters during a period of more tnan five years, have been working separately on our glosseraatic theory, and we were very ea- ger indeed to compare notes, as you may easily understand; the fact is that ws have been working in the same direction, and that we nave partly reached the same results; of course we ore very re- lieved to see taht. We are now going throughtthe whole thing as far as possible, but i fear that there will be only little spare time; the Uldall*s are very busy seeing their family and digging out all the things they left here in a hufcry in various places at tne outbreak, of the war; furtuermore tney are not staying long, and they are going as far as to Buenos Aires, where Uldall is go- ing to take over a job for the Britisn Council, xia snail stay down there for some years; this will not mean much facility to our co operation, but we must now make a practical arrangement; the main thing is that we have taken contact. Thank yotk for telling me about the Linguistic Circle of Hew York. We shall be only too glad to collaborate as f»r as possible and to receive t|ie "Word”. I shall give notice about this in the next meeting of the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen. We hope eagerly that it should be possible to see you in the time to come. Somraurfelt tells me in a letter that he hopes you will come to Horway. 1 have not had any news yet from Czechoslovakia. Helge Poul- sen’s address seems to be 62 Hjallesevej, Odense; 1 have heard nothing of him during the last five years, so 1 am sorry I cannot give you any details. Best wishes to both of you from the Uldall*s, from my family and from myself. Yours ever,